་

that she had been a saint before he was born, and would be one after he was hanged. Upon this,' says Sir Roger, I 'I did not think fit to repeat the former question, but going into every lane in the neighbourhood, asked what they called the name of that lane.' By which ingenious artifice he found out the place he inquired after, without giving offence to any party."

It is obvious that were I to follow, by analogy, the plan adopted by Sir Roger de Coverley, I should, in despair at not being able to please all parties, and wishing to give offence to none, resort to the safe and pacific method of not writing these letters at all. Yet as, for very many reasons, I feel bound to write and to continue them, and as I am not quite certain whether, in case I was dumb, I might not find some persons who would make a crime of my silence, I offer my respectful compliments and drop a reverent courtesy to those who like and those who dislike me; merely hinting to the latter, that Sir Charles once told me there were few follies so pernicious as eating olives, drinking absinthe, and smoking cigars, if those luxuries (to some) were nauseous to, and disagreed with you. Whereupon I resume the thread of my 'curriculum of counsel per the penny post.

Unceasing, darling, as is my anxiety for your welfare and your happiness, I have been occupied by a constant solicitude as regards the amusements of which you partake. It should be a matter of rejoicing for mothers separated from their daughters, now-a-days, that the life they lead, in what is commonly called the gay world of London, may be frivolous and idle enough, but can scarcely be dissipated or dangerous. When the Rev. Mr. Gisborne wrote upon the "Duties of Women," and when good Mrs. Hannah More undertook to make the world of fine-ladyism moral, there were really many dangers to which a young lady

was exposed, and there was really a considerable amount of what we should now call dissipation in fashionable female society. An evening party in high life-whether it was called a Drum, a Rout, or an Assembly-was very little better than a brilliant gambling house, and a larger per-centage present of diamonds, brocade skirts, and wax candles. At the sacred palace of St. James's even, at stated times, the male and female aristocracy gambled furiously under the auspices of the Groom Porter. Young ladies lost not only their pocket money, and married ladies their pin money, but contracted in addition large "debts of honour," after losing at hazard or E. O., or " Spadille, Manille, and Basto." What young lady plays cards now-a-days, unless, indeed, she joins in a round game at Christmas time, is pressed into a whist-party in the country by some ancient tabbies like those by whom I am surrounded, or takes a hand at piquet with her gouty old papa ?

Fifty years since young ladies used to bet desperately at Newmarket; at present their operations on the turf are confinedand they must be boisterous young things even for that—to a share in a harmless sweepstake, or a half-dozen pair of glove bet on a horse they never heard of before half-past two o'clock on the Derby Day. There are no Mrs. Corneley's masquerades now-not the debased Saturnalia one reads of in the newspapers, attended by but dissipated men and vile creatures of the other sex, but by the thoughtless and reckless of both sexes in the very highest classes of society. There are no impudent play-books and demoralising novels for girls to read on the sly—a course of reading not unfrequently culminating in an elopement with the lowest of Irish fortune-hunters, or an intrigue with the footman. Look at the scrupulously unobjectionable list of books which your annual subscription will procure you from the respectable Mr. Mudie's, and

consider how pure young-lady literature must be in an epoch when some mammas consider even such novels as Mr. Thackeray's "Vanity Fair," and Miss Bronté's "Jane Eyre," dangerous reading for their daughters! True there are yet French novels, and naughty ones, but they are banished from all genteel houses; and it is one of the most curious circumstances in the career of that strange man who is now absolute Ruler of a neighbouring Empire, that he who had not led the most regular or blameless of lives in his youthno sooner came to power than he began sternly to set his face against improprieties in literature and art. Quand le Diable est vieux il se fait hermite," runs the proverb; and it is certain that the Ruler in question is gradually converting the most vicious city in Europe into the soberest and most decorous of capitals. Perhaps, when that long-threatened invasion of our shores by his armies takes place, the Conqueror's first act may be-for the sins of "auld lang syne "to rase Crockford's to the ground, although it is now but a harmless eating-house, and sow its wicked site with salt.

66

Thus, then, you see that I consider a modern young English lady to be a much more rangée damsel than was her great-grandmother in her maidenhood. No beautiful Miss Gunnings, no lovely brazen-faced Duchesses of Kingston, no Georginas of Devonshire even, canvassing for Westminster elections, with foxes' brushes amidst the plumes in their hats, and giving butchers a kiss for a vote, would be tolerated within the pale of polite society. Molly Lepel would be thought improper. Belinda would not dare to receive half the outspoken compliments on her diamonds she once heard with pleasure; and a gentleman would be ostracised from genteel circles who made the name of a "reigning beauty" the subject for a "toast" at a bacchanalian meeting, drinking as many glasses to her as there were letters in her name.

Besides, there are no "reigning beauties" in our time.

The age of mediocrity has brought even female charms under its dull sway; and we have five hundred thousand average pretty girls and no Semiramis, no Belle, Stuart, no Fair Geraldine, to stand out a Sun of Beauty in a firmament of twinkling prettinesses-the "little people of the skies."

A great Beauty, at this day, is usually some singing or dancing woman, about whom the young men rave, whom one cannot meet in society, and who comes to some deplorable end somewhere abroad. True it is that some silly women yet arrogate to themselves, or have thrust on them, the transient title of "Beauty" or "Belle," which they no more deserve than Mr. Carlyle's "Gretchen Maultasche," or " Margaret with the pouchmouth." The "Belle" of Pumpwell-le-Springs, my dear, is eight-and-thirty, aud has shoulders like a clotheshorse, that you might hang huckaback towels on. I believe she founds her claim to being a "Belle" on the fact that she once met Count d'Orsay in the crush-room of the opera, and that he whispered to Lord Chesterfield-not one of our branch of the family—“ Elle est furieusement belle la grande blonde." The "grande blonde" has become a gaunt, middleaged woman, with red ringlets, a hard skin, and the shoulders I speak of. When the skin was supple, the shoulders without salt-cellars, and the ringlets could be called, without a great stretch of the imagination, "golden auburn," she refused some half-dozen advantageous offers. Now she is fain to ogle the limping half-pays of Pumpwell, and I believe would marry Mr. Lampkins if he could muster up enough courage to ask her. Belles," forsooth! I met the 66 Belle of the West Riding" once at an Assize Ball, and I declare she squinted; and, by her gait, seemed to have one leg longer than the other. The term of "Belle" has been misused even to caricature and contempt; and Mr. Nedwards,

66